Sergei Mironovich Kirov (Russian: Серге́й Миро́нович Ки́ров), born Kostrikov (Ко́стриков; 27 March [O.S. 15 March] 1886 – 1 December 1934), was a prominent early Bolshevik leader in the Soviet Union. Kirov rose through the Communist Party ranks to become head of the party organization in Leningrad.

On 1 December 1934, Kirov was shot and killed by a gunman at his offices in the Smolny Institute. Some historians place the blame for his assassination at the hands of Joseph Stalin and believe the NKVD organized his execution, but any evidence for this claim remains lacking.[1] Kirov's death served as one of the pretexts for Stalin's escalation of repression against dissident elements of the Party, culminating in the Great Purge of the late 1930s in which many of the Old Bolsheviks were arrested, expelled from the party, and executed.[2] Complicity in Kirov's assassination was a common charge to which the accused confessed in the show trials of the period.

He was born Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov into a poor family in Urzhum (then in Vyatka Governorate of the Russian Empire). He was one of seven children born to Miron Ivanovich Kostrikov and Yekaterina Kuzminichna Kostrikova (née Kazantseva); their first four children had died young, while Anna (born 1883), Sergei (1886) and Yelizaveta (1889) survived.[3]

Miron, an alcoholic, abandoned the family around 1890. In 1893, Yekaterina died of tuberculosis. Sergei and his sisters were briefly raised by their paternal grandmother, Melania Avdeyevna Kostrikova, but she could not afford to take care of them all on her small pension of 3 rubles per month. Through her connections, she was able to have Sergei placed in an orphanage, but he saw his sisters and grandmother regularly.[4]

Kirov took part in the Russian Revolution of 1905, and was arrested and later released. He joined with the Bolsheviks soon after being released from prison. In 1906, Kirov was arrested once again, but this time jailed for over three years, charged with printing illegal literature. Soon after his release, he again took part in revolutionary activity. Once again being arrested for printing illegal literature, after a year of custody, Kostrikov moved to the Caucasus, where he stayed until the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II.

By this time, Sergei Kostrikov had changed his name to Kirov in order to make his name easier to remember, a practice common among Russian revolutionaries of the time. One theory is that the name "Kir" reminded him of the ancient Persian leader Cyrus the Great, while another is that he took his name from St. Kir after seeing a calendar of Russian Orthodox saints.[6]

Kirov became commander of the Bolshevik military administration in Astrakhan. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, he fought in the Russian Civil War until 1920. Simon Sebag Montefiore writes: "During the Civil War, Kirov was one of the swashbuckling commissars in the North Caucasus beside Ordzhonikidze and Mikoyan. In Astrakhan he enforced Bolshevik power in March 1919 with liberal bloodletting: more than 4,000 were killed. When a bourgeois was caught hiding his own furniture, Kirov ordered him shot."[7]

In 1921, he became manager of the Azerbaijan party organization. Kirov was a loyal supporter of Joseph Stalin, and in 1926 he was rewarded with the command of the Leningrad party.

As a result, Kirov drew the unwelcome attention of Stalin, particularly after the 1934 party congress, where delegates voting for new Central Committee membership elected Kirov with just three votes against.

Although Kirov had been a strong supporter of Stalin, including the leader's sharp swing to the left during the period of enforced collectivisation and dekulakisation (which had seen millions die in a famine), Kirov's speech to the congress suggested he wanted to see a more relaxed approach in the future. Kirov, a lover of the good life and a hardened drinker who would even swear in public, was also highly popular with party cadres who saw this style as a welcome alternative to the increasingly (in public, at least) austere regime promoted by Stalin.

Supposedly, Stalin received far more negative votes than Kirov, although the historical records are not entirely clear. After the party congress, Stalin asked Kirov to work for him in Moscow, assisting the Politburo, but then repeatedly postponed Kirov's transfer, stating that Kirov was temporarily required in Leningrad to finish important party business.[8] Kirov was not invited to certain Politburo meetings, and was kept in Leningrad for over nine months.[8] Kirov's influence continued to grow, and at a plenary session of the Central Committee in November 1934 Kirov urged the adoption of further conciliatory measures by the party in favor of party dissidents, which won enthusiastic applause and approval among the delegates.[8]

The Leningrad office of the NKVD – headed by Kirov’s close friend, Feodor Medved – looked after Kirov’s security. Stalin reportedly ordered the NKVD Commissar, Genrikh Yagoda, to replace Medved with Grigory Yeremeyevich Yevdokimov, a close associate of Stalin. However, Kirov intervened and had the order countermanded. According to Alexander Orlov, Stalin then ordered Yagoda to arrange the assassination. Yagoda ordered Medved’s deputy, Vania Zaporozhets, to undertake the job. Zaporozhets returned to Leningrad in search of an assassin; in reviewing the files he found the name of Leonid Nikolayev.[9]

Leonid Nikolayev was well-known to the NKVD, which had arrested him for various petty offences in recent years. Various accounts of his life agree that he was an expelled Party member and failed junior functionary with a murderous grudge and an indifference towards his own survival. He was unemployed, with a wife and child, and in financial difficulties. According to Orlov, Nikolayev had allegedly expressed to a 'friend' a desire to kill the head of the party control commission that had expelled him. His friend reported this to the NKVD.[9]

Zaporozhets then allegedly enlisted Nikolayev’s "friend" to contact him, giving him money and a loaded 7.62 mm Nagant M1895 revolver.[9] However, Nikolayev's first attempt at killing Kirov failed. On 15 October 1934, Nikolaev packed his Nagant revolver in a briefcase and entered the Smolny Institute where Kirov worked. Although he was initially passed by the main security desk at Smolny, he was arrested after an alert guard asked to examine his briefcase, which was found to contain the revolver.[9] A few hours later, Nikolayev’s briefcase and loaded revolver were returned to him, and he was told to leave the building. Though Nikolayev had clearly broken Soviet laws, the security police had inexplicably released him from custody; he was even permitted to retain his loaded pistol.[10]

With Stalin's approval, the NKVD had previously withdrawn all but four police bodyguards assigned to Kirov. These four guards accompanied Kirov each day to his offices at the Smolny Institute, and then left. On 1 December 1934, the usual guard post at the entrance to Kirov's offices was left unmanned, even though the building served as the chief offices of the Leningrad party apparatus and as the seat of the local government.[9][11] According to some reports, only a single friend and unarmed bodyguard of Kirov's, Commissar Borisov, remained.[11][12] Other sources[who?] state that there may have been as many as nine NKVD guards in the building. Whatever the case, given the circumstances of Kirov's death, as former Soviet official and author Alexander Barmine noted, "the negligence of the NKVD in protecting such a high party official was without precedent in the Soviet Union."[10]

On the afternoon of 1 December, Nikolayev arrived at the Smolny Institute offices. Unopposed, he made his way to the third floor, where he waited in a hallway until Kirov and Borisov stepped into the corridor. Borisov appears to have stayed well behind Kirov, some 20 to 40 paces (some sources allege Borisov parted company with Kirov in order to prepare his luncheon).[12] As Kirov turned a corner, passing Nikolayev, the latter drew his revolver and shot Kirov in the back of the neck.[12]

The Sergei Kirov Museum[13] maintains that the circumstances of Kirov's death "remain unknown to this day." There are no doubts on the aftermath, however: "the bloodiest round of Stalin's terror and repression."

After Kirov's death, Stalin called for swift punishment of the traitors and those found negligent in Kirov's death. Nikolayev was tried alone and secretly by Vasili Ulrikh, Chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. He was sentenced to death by shooting on 29 December 1934, and the sentence was carried out that very night.

The hapless Commissar Borisov died the day after the assassination, supposedly by falling from a moving truck while riding with a group of NKVD agents. Borisov’s wife was committed to an insane asylum. According to Orlov, Nikolayev’s mysterious 'friend' and alleged provocateur, who had supplied him with the revolver and money, was later shot on Stalin’s personal orders.[9]

Nikolayev's mother, brother, sisters, cousin and some other people close to him were arrested and later liquidated or sent to labor camps. Arrested immediately after the assassination, Nikolayev's wife, Milda Draule, survived her husband by three months before being executed as well. Their infant son (who was named Marx following the Bolshevik naming fashion) was sent into an orphanage. Marx Draule was alive in 2005 when he was officially rehabilitated as a victim of political repressions, and Milda was also found innocent retrospectively. However, Nikolayev was never posthumously acquitted.

Several NKVD officers from the Leningrad branch were convicted of negligence for not adequately protecting Kirov, and sentenced to prison terms of up to ten years. None of these NKVD officers were executed in the aftermath, and none actually served time in prison. Instead, they were transferred to executive posts in Stalin's labor camps for a period of time (in effect, a demotion).[10] According to Nikita Khrushchev, these same NKVD officers were shot in 1937 during Stalin's purges.[14]

Initially, a Communist Party communiqué reported that Nikolaev had confessed his guilt, not only as an assassin, but an assassin in the pay of a "fascist power," receiving money from an unidentified 'foreign consul' in Leningrad.[15] 104 defendants who were already in prison at the time of Kirov's assassination and who had no demonstrable connection to Nikolayev were found guilty of complicity in the "fascist plot" against Kirov, and summarily executed.[15]

However, a few days later, during a subsequent Communist Party meeting of the Moscow District, the Party secretary announced in a speech that Nikolayev was personally interrogated by Stalin the day after the assassination, an unheard-of event for a party leader such as Stalin:[16]

"Comrade Stalin personally directed the investigation of Kirov's assassination. He questioned Nikolayev at length. The leaders of the Opposition placed the gun in Nikolayev's hand!"[16]

Other speakers duly rose to condemn the Opposition: "The Central Committee must be pitiless – the Party must be purged... the record of every member must be scrutinized...." No one at the meeting mentioned the initial theory of fascist agents.[16] Later, Stalin even used the Kirov assassination to eliminate the remainder of the Opposition leadership against him, accusing Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Abram Prigozhin, and others who had stood with Kirov in opposing Stalin (or simply failed to acquiesce to Stalin's views), of being 'morally responsible' for Kirov's murder, and as such were guilty of complicity.[15] All were removed from the Party apparatus and given prison sentences. While serving their sentences, the Opposition leaders were charged with new crimes, for which they were sentenced to death and shot.

In December 1955, after Nikita Khrushchev assumed control of the Party, the Presidium of the Central Committee (CPSU) entrusted P. N. Pospelov, Secretary of the Central Committee, to form a commission to investigate the repression of the 1930s (this was the same Pospelov who drafted the famous "Secret Speech" of Khrushchev at the 20th Congress). Khrushchev stated:

"It must be asserted that to this day the circumstances surrounding Kirov's murder hide many things which are inexplicable and mysterious and demand a most careful examination. There are reasons for the suspicion that the killer of Kirov, Nikolayev, was assisted by someone from among the people whose duty it was protect the person of Kirov. A month and a half before the killing, Nikolayev was arrested on the grounds of suspicious behaviour, but he was released and not even searched. It is an unusually suspicious circumstance that when the Chekist [Borisov] assigned to protect Kirov was being brought for an interrogation, on 2 December 1934, he was killed in a car "accident" in which no other occupants of the car were harmed. After the murder of Kirov, top functionaries of the Leningrad NKVD were relieved of their duties and were given very light sentences, but in 1937 they were shot. We can assume that they were shot in order to cover the traces of the organizers of Kirov's killing."[14]

Pospelov subsequently spoke to Dr. Kirchakov and former nurse Trunina, former members of the party, who had been mentioned in a letter by another member of the commission, (Olga Shatunovskaya), as having knowledge of the Kirov murder. Dr. Kirchakov confirmed that he did talk to Shatunovskaya and Trunina about some of the unexplained aspects of the Kirov murder case, and agreed to provide the Commission with a written deposition. He stressed that his statement was based on the testimony of one Comrade Yan Olsky, a former NKVD officer who was demoted after Kirov's murder and transferred to the People's Supply System[citation needed].

In his deposition, Dr. Kirchakov wrote that he had discussed the murder of Kirov and the role of Fyodor Medved with Olsky. Olsky was of the firm opinion that Medved, Kirov's friend and NKVD security chief of the Leningrad branch, was innocent of the murder. Olsky also told Kirchakov that Medved had been barred from the NKVD Kirov assassination investigation. Instead, the investigation was carried out by a senior NKVD chief, Yakov Agranov, and later by another NKVD bureau officer,[17] whose name he did not remember. During one of the committee sessions, Olskii related he was present when Stalin asked Leonid Nikolaev why Comrade Kirov had been killed. To this Nikolaev replied that he carried out the instruction of the "Chekists" [NKVD] and pointed towards the group of 'Chekists' [NKVD officers] standing in the room; Medved was not amongst them[citation needed].

Khrushchev's Report, On the Personality Cult and Its Consequences was later read at closed-door Party meetings. Afterward, new material was received by the Pospelov committee, including the statement of Kirov's chauffeur, Kuzin, that Commissar Borisov, Kirov's friend and bodyguard, who was responsible for Kirov's round the clock security at Smolny, was intentionally killed, and that his death in a road accident was not at all natural[citation needed].

The last attempt in the Soviet Union to review the Kirov murder case was the Politburo Commission headed by Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev which was established in the Gorbachev period in 1989. The investigating team included personnel from the USSR Procurator's Office, the Military Procuracy, the KGB and various archival administrations. After two years of investigations the working team of the Yakovlev commission concluded that: 'in this affair no materials objectively support Stalin's participation or NKVD participation in the organisation and carrying out of Kirov's murder.[18]

Alexander Barmine, a Soviet official who knew both Stalin and Kirov, asserted that Stalin arranged the murder with the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, who armed Nikolaev and sent him to assassinate Kirov.[19] The death of Kirov was used by Stalin to ignite the Great Purge, where supporters of Trotsky and other suspected enemies testified that they were guilty of such a conspiracy against the Soviet government and arrested.

However the Great Purge is generally considered to have begun in the second-half of 1936, more than eighteen months after Kirov's assassination. Initial reactions to Kirov's death from the Soviet leadership were muted and it was only later cited as a pretext to purge the party.

"One thing is certain: the only man who profited by the Kirov assassination was Stalin."[20]

Contrary to popular belief, Khrushchev's secret speech in 1956 did not make the accusation that Stalin personally ordered Kirov's murder. Khrushchev stated that "the circumstances surrounding Kirov's murder hide many things which are inexplicable and mysterious and demand a most careful examination."[21] He argued that the NKVD agents tasked with protecting Kirov were eventually shot in 1937 to "cover up the traces of the organizers of Kirov's killing."[21]

Soviet scholar J. Arch Getty doubts the evidence that Stalin was culpable for Kirov's assassination, calling it "complicated and at least secondhand."[22] He further claims that "before the Cold War, no serious authority argued that Stalin was behind the assassination." [23] Getty echoed Khrushchev's observation of police complicity in the murder, but doubts Stalin's complicity. He states, for example, that the NKVD head, Genrikh Yagoda, who allegedly received the order from Stalin to kill Kirov later confessed in open court in 1938 to Kirov's murder. Getty argues that it would have been "very dangerous to allow [Yagoda] to appear later before the microphones of the world press" if he had knowledge of Stalin's complicity because he "knew that he would be shot anyway" and "it would have been easy for him to let slip that Stalin had put him up to it."[24] Moreover, Getty points to the fact that the killer, who was immediately apprehended, had on his person a diary that provided no evidence of his motives or any deeper connections. Getty argues that if Stalin had been behind the killing in an effort to blame the opposition and launch a purge, he would not have allowed a dead-end diary to go public. Moreover, the Stalinist political response was haphazard, evidencing reaction rather than proaction or planning.

For many years, a huge statue of Kirov in granite and bronze dominated the panorama of the city of Baku. The monument was erected on a hill in 1939 and was dismantled in January 1992, after Azerbaijan gained its independence. The Kirov class of battlecruisers is named in his honor, though the first-of-class vessel originally named Kirov has since been renamed Admiral Ushakov.

^The other NKVD official may have been Yefim Georgievich Yevdokimov, (1891–1939), a Stalin crony, mass-killing specialist, and architect of the Shakhty purge trials, who continued to lead a secret police team within the NKVD even after technically retiring from the OGPU in 1931.